Great way for you to interact with other business owners and get advice and feedback on projects you have underway. Take a look at the complete blog post and get involved! http://marketingpodcastshow.com/think-tank-thursdays/

There is a very interesting case study document put together by Hubspot.  As I searched online I have noticed there are not a lot of case studies with small business use of social media and found this great research.

I embedded the slides for you to review.

Now here is what I’d like to do. I would like to interview from 5-10 small business owners that have had significant success using social media to build my own case studies and distribute to blog readers and clients.

This will allow you to have exposure for your business as well as giving you the opportunity to educate others on what you have done in the social media marketing arena.

If you would like to be interviewed, please:

#1 leave a comment here on this post and

#2 go to our contact page and fill it out with your details so we can coordinate. Make sure to include your website, best email and phone number along with specific business improvements your social media marketing has done for your company.

The deadline for submission is Sept. 30th 2010.

Thank you

Great blog post on small businesses turning to social media for hiring and recruitment efforts. This is very timely as we are actually thinking about using this approach to bring on new staff within the company.

Social Media – A Perfect Tool for Small Business Hiring

This is a great article I came across on how you can use some shortcut tools to managing your social media campaigns. I really like the second option suggested and will be implementing this quickly within our own social media campaign strategy.

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/tips/archives/2010/08/timesavers_to_manage_your_social_media_presence.html

While conducting some research on social media and how larger companies are using these sites I ran across PR FIRM Burson-Masteller and some interesting findings. The firm found that 79% of the largest 100 companies in the Fortune Global 500 index are using at least one of the most popular social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or corporate blogs.

Seems that if you are not tweeting you are not really even in the social media game as Twitter is the most popular amongst the social media sites. From their findings corporations are getting more and more comfortable using social media platforms and engaging customers.

There is a complete analysis they have so graciously put together that breaks the study down in digestible bites. I have included the study below.

What is Social Media Marketing?

According to Wikipedia Social media is information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. It is intended to facilitate communications, influence interaction between peers and with public audiences. This is typically done via the Internet and mobile communications networks. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content consumer-generated media (CGM). (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

In laymen terms Social Media is one big party where everyone is having a conversation about what they like, dislike and posting opinions on everything from movies, companies, politics, celebrities etc.

How can Social Media Marketing help my business?

I’m glad you asked. You have won half the battle. There are still some businesses that are putting their head in the sand hoping that this whle social media stuff will go away. Well I don’t believe it will and in fact its maybe the biggest internet phenomenon since Al Gor found it…right.

Well social media is all around us and as a business owner we have to be startegic in finsing ways that we can participate in this big party without looking like a jerk and interact our brand and philosophies to keep a pulse on what’s being said within our industry and particulary what’s being said about our company directly.

Dell has claimed to have increased revenue by $3 million just on tweets they have posted on twitter since 2007.

Top 3 ways social media can help your business:

1. Interact and build a loyal following of customers by providing value and content around your brand.

2. Engage customers on a deeper more personal level to build trust.

3. Recommend those happy customers to share your brand with their network.